


Team Wolf

by random_pairings_50113



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-21 03:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4812677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/random_pairings_50113/pseuds/random_pairings_50113
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One night, Lydia Martin witnesses a wolf attacking her classmate, Scott McCall. Considering that wolves don't exist in California, and haven't for almost a century, she thinks she might be going mad. And as Scott begins to develop strange characteristics, Lydia is almost certain she's insane - especially when he comes to her, claiming to be a werewolf.</p>
<p>Fighting against distant-but-concerned parents, aggressive nineteen-year-old Gothic heroes and the wolf who started it all, Lydia isn't sure she's ready for the responsibilities that come with being on a werewolf's side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All Dogs Need To Poo

**Author's Note:**

> Literally just a re-write of season 1 of Teen Wolf, with Lydia and Scott as the main characters - and BFFs throughout. The Dydia won't be strong for a few chapters, so bear with. 
> 
> This whole idea is based on the original script, in which Derek is 19, not 20-odd like is canon now, so I'm going off that. Also, there was a lot of promos for the first season that put the Derek/Lydia idea in my head.

The night was still, bar the humming of the electricity line that turned invisible against the dark, star-littered sky. Lydia Martin yawned, wished for the millionth time that she was in bed, and continued to stare at the line (or where she thought it was) while she waited for her dog to finish pooing.

“This is the worst, Prada,” she mumbled, her breath issuing in silvery clouds from her mouth, trailing up to the stars. “Why did you have to wake me up?”

Having to take your dog out to poo wasn’t the most pleasant experience in the daylight, but when they woke you up in the middle of the night, it was just unfair. Plus, her mom had forbidden any dog poop in the back garden, so Lydia had to walk out into the woods that hedged her house, in the freezing cold, just so that Prada could relieve himself.

Prada looked pretty nonplussed by the whole event. Lydia stood, shivering, in a hoodie, coat and her dad’s old fleece, while her dog calmly sat and seemed totally unaffected.

“I hate you,” she whispered to the dog, who didn’t reply.

Lydia scoffed and looked into the woods instead, focusing on not getting scared by the looming shadows that enveloped her (the fluorescent lights of her house were but a distant glare) and the odd noises that made her jump. She had just managed to tell herself that nothing was wrong when she heard a noise that was unmistakably a howl.

“That’s not normal,” Lydia breathed, eyes wide, hands itching to reach down and snatch up her dog (who had still not finished pooing) and run. Her heart felt as though it was about to run off without her. “Wolves aren’t in California.”

She glanced down to see if Prada was finished- and almost screamed. Where once there had been a Chihuahua, there was nothing but empty forest floor.

“It’s ok,” she whispered to herself, stepping forwards a little further into the woods. “It’s ok. There hasn’t been wolves in California for sixty years. It’s okay.” Lydia sucked in a deep breath. “PRADA!” she yelled, looking around for any sign of her dog. “PRADA! I’LL LEAVE YOU OUT HERE TO DIE!”

Nothing. Cursing, Lydia took a couple more tentative steps. “PRADA!”

Another howl sounded, this time closer, and this time it was most definitely real. Lydia was, by this point, so far into the woods that she couldn’t see back the way she’d come. Her house lights were no longer visible. And she hadn’t brought her phone.

Close to hysterical sobs, Lydia yelled out, wildly: “PRADA!”

She listened and froze in horror – there was definitely the sound of something approaching. Footsteps, it sounded like – maybe the police? Her mom? A totally innocent walker who had stumbled across her dog and decided to nicely return it? Instead, the person that emerged was-

“Scott?”

Lydia had never felt so relieved to see Scott McCall in her life. Despite the fact that she would probably be the best bet to get them out of a bad situation (McCall was a little too uncoordinated to be of much use, although his best friend, Stiles, was five thousand times worse), Lydia couldn’t help but feel relief that it wasn’t a mass murderer.

“What the hell are you doing out here, Lydia?” Scott hissed, eyes darting around as though he was waiting for something to happen.

“Is this a prank?” Lydia demanded. “Did Jackson put you up to stealing my dog so he could see my legs in my pyjama shorts? NOT FUNNY, WHITTEMORE!” she yelled out to the woods.

Scott darted over to her and placed a hand over her mouth, shushing her vehemently. “Didn’t you hear that howl?”

Lydia rolled her eyes and gently took Scott’s hand away from her face. “I’m not an idiot, McCall. Wolves haven’t been in Cali for sixty years.”

“They found a body,” Scott blurted out. “Tonight. Stiles’ dad found it, torn apart by something that looked like a wolf.”

Lydia’s heart sped up again. “Is this a joke?”

Scott shook his head vehemently, and Lydia noticed the dead leaves littering his dark, fluffy hair. “No. Stiles heard about it, and we went to go and find it – I was stupid. But we found it. And it’s been torn apart by something with claws.”

Lydia was horrified. She knew Scott (well, kind of. She’d had to go through the whole of her young life with him in school with her) and she knew he couldn’t lie about a thing like that. “Scott, where’s Stiles?”

Scott shrugged, and Lydia noticed how scared he was, by the wideness of his brown eyes. “We heard the wolf, so we ran. I fell and was looking for my inhaler, which is when I found you.”

Lydia breathed in and then out again. “I need to find Prada.”

Scott blinked. “What?”

“Prada,” Lydia repeated as though he was an imbecile. “My dog? He’s the whole reason I’m out here in the first place. He ran off.”

“Lydia, your dog isn’t the-‘’

A soft crunch echoed behind them. Scott shut up immediately, and Lydia tried desperately hard not to breathe or make a sound.

“Something’s behind us,” Scott breathed. “Lydia, we need to run.”

Lydia nodded numbly, and then they grabbed each other’s’ hands instinctively and ran. The woods turned into a blur of blacks, greys and dark greens as they ran, leaping over fallen trunks and ducking under low-hanging branches. They tore into the distance, and didn’t stop when they heard another set of footsteps crashing in the undergrowth behind them.

“MY HOUSE!” Lydia yelled over the sound of the landscape rushing past them, trying to steer them in the general direction she thought it was in. All thoughts of her dog were gone. “IT’LL BE SAFE THERE!”

Scott didn’t answer back – asthmatic, Lydia realised with a jolt. But they couldn’t stop, not with the other person gaining on them. But it didn’t sound like a person. It had been two feet before, but now it was definitely four. And they were lighter and-

Another howl echoed through the night and Lydia skidded to a halt when she nearly slammed into the trees. Next to her, Scott was breathing heavily. His hand in hers was weak, and he kept sucking in great lungfuls of air, and then choking on it.

“Can’t- breathe-‘’ he gasped out.

Lydia let out a cry of annoyance and rage. She could still hear their assailant, but they must have put some distance between themselves and him, because the great footsteps sounded far away.

“What do we do?” Lydia cried out, tugging at the loose strands of hair that had fallen out of her already-messy bun. “What do we _do_? Scott, can you hear me?”

Scott clearly couldn’t, because he didn’t make any sign that he could. Instead, he was too focused on trying to breathe. Meanwhile, the person was getting closer and closer by the second.

“Leave- lea-‘’ Scott was trying to say something, but between his panting, chokes and whispered words, Lydia couldn’t discern what he was saying.

“What?”

“Leave me,” Scott eventually managed, collapsing to his knees, pressing his forehead to a nearby tree trunk and wheezing in and out.

Lydia shook her head resolutely. She didn’t know what was happening, but one thing was certain; she was not leaving Scott to die alone.

“No way,” she said firmly, and she crouched next to him to rub his back and try to make eye contact. He kept his head bowed. “I wouldn’t leave anyone to die, never mind you, Scott. Okay?”

Scott spluttered something out, but Lydia never got chance to ask him what he was trying to say, because the sound of the careful steps of some kind of animal was directly behind her. Lydia turned, heart thumping. She couldn’t see much through the dark, but she could most definitely make out a pair of glowing, red eyes.

“No,” Lydia breathed out, verging on hysterics. She climbed slowly to her feet and backed away, trying to put distance between herself and the wolf, whilst also attempting to drag its attention away from Scott. “This isn’t happening.”

The wolf eyed her with a certain amount of interest, but its gaze was definitely directed at Scott, and she could not let it kill him. Scott might have been a half-wit, and he might have kind of annoyed her with his dopey looks, but he had the kindest, most sincere heart of anyone she had ever met and she was not letting him die.

So it was with this thought in mind that Lydia – the cleverest girl ever in Beacon Hills High School, who had a GPA larger than anyone at Devenford Prep- picked up a loose stone and tossed it towards an already-angry wolf.

“These were new sneakers,” was all she could find in herself to say, before the wolf charged and Lydia ran. She barely got two meters away before she realised it wasn’t following her anymore.

She heard Scott’s screams and she ran back, snatching up another stone and throwing it at the wolf as soon as she got back into a throwing zone. Scott was laying, flat on the ground, unmoving, and Lydia felt horror rise up in her throat. The wolf turned its eyes onto her and she opened her mouth to scream.

“FREEZE!”

Lydia had never, ever been happier to hear the police in her life. She recognised the voice as Stiles’ dad’s – the Sheriff – and nearly cried in relief. The Sheriff and a couple of deputies stormed past her.

But the wolf was gone.


	2. Hospital Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia ends up in the hospital twice in one day, new girl Allison Argent arrives and wolves in California might not be such a far-fetched idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Word has decided to conk out on me, so I'm having to use WordPad and it doesn't tell me if I have any spellings wrong, so any mistakes, please tell me!!!!

The next day, Lydia sauntered into school for the first day back after summer as though nothing had happened. Her hair was perfectly curled, her clothes the height of fashion and her make-up covered the few scratches she had acquired the night before. No one else seemed to realise where she had been last night (although the school was alive with rumours about the dead body and a rampant killer) so it was easy for Lydia to just flick her hair back and get on with her life, pretending as if nothing had changed.

Even if she had spent the night in a hospital.

After the Sheriff had arrived, they'd alerted an ambulance, and within minutes there were paramedics on the scene. Lydia herself had been taken to the Sheriff's car, where she had been questioned. All she had been able to say, over and over, was:

"Wolves don't exist in California."

Lydia had been sent to the hospital, where she had been treated for shock. And then, once she was cleared to leave, she refused to go until she had seen Scott to make sure he was okay. Only when Scott's mom - Melissa McCall, who worked as a nurse at the hospital - came out to reassure her that everything was fine did Lydia relax. Still, she'd been adamant about not leaving until she had seen him, so Melissa had snuck her into the room.

Scott looked different. There was just something about him that had seemed off to her. It wasn't his hair, which was free of foliage, or even the breathing mask that covered his face. Lydia had been halfway to lifting up his shirt to see if the mark was still there (to see if it had actually happened) before she realised what she was doing.

Once she was satisfied, the Sheriff gave her a lift home. He told her that she was never to go out into the woods at night, unchaperoned, again. And then he left her, standing in her dad's old fleece and a pair of freshly-ruined sneakers, on the edge of the place where her life had just so recently fallen apart. There had been something about the weak morning light, just beginning to brush the tops of the trees, that had made her want to go back; to explore the woods and find some evidence that something had happened that night. But, just like in the hospital, she came to her senses and headed inside for a shower.

Prada was still missing, Lydia had bruises all the way up her arms and the back door was wide open, but she managed to (sort of) forget all about that the moment she saw the new girl.

Allison Argent, she was introduced as when she entered their first class of the new year. She had wide, innocent brown eyes, long brown hair and model-length legs. Her awkward grin was ever-present, making her already-pronounced jawline even harder to miss. In short, she was beautiful, which meant that Lydia had to make them best friends.

"That jacket is... absolutely killer," Lydia praised, cornering Allison by her locker after class. "Where'd you get it?"

Allison looked around from her locker, surprised, eyes wide. Then her grin was back and she toyed with the strap of her bag shyly. "My mom was a buyer for a boutique back in San Francisco."

Lydia's grin grew wider and she poked Allison's shoulder playfully. "And you are my new best friend."

As she spoke, she felt someone come up to her side and grab her around the waist. Lydia panicked for a moment, and was halfway to screaming for help when she realised that it was, in fact, her own boyfriend.

"Jackson," she breathed, plastering a grin on her face. "Hey."

Jackson drew her in for a long kiss (it was their first time seeing each other in a few weeks; he'd been in France with his parents) and then immediately drew his attention to Allison. If it had been any other day, and if Lydia hadn't just recently experienced a brush with death, she might have felt a little jealousy at the interested spark in Jackson's eyes. As it was, she had experienced a brush with death, so she wasn't so bothered.

"There's a party on Friday night," he announced. "You should come."

Allison started making a bad excuse, but Lydia's attention was drawn to the other side of the hall, where Stiles Stilinski (Scott's best friend) was stood by his locker, looking lonely without Scott by his side, as was normal. He was watching Jackson, Lydia and Allison out of the corner of his eye, whilst also trying to fend off a nosy girl who was bothering him about Scott. When he noticed she was looking, his face morphed into a feeling Lydia wasn't acquainted with, especially when directed at her: disappointment, and slight annoyance. Usually, Stiles was falling all over his feet just to get her attention. But today he could barely even look at her.

"Shouldn't she, Lydia?" Jackson's voice asked, and Lydia turned back with a false smile.

"Yeah, totally," she agreed, even though she had no idea what the topic was.

When Jackson started lauding on about lacrosse in relation to football, though, Lydia got the gist: they were heading to lacrosse practice, so Jackson could show off to the new girl. It was Autumn; the bleachers were always ice-cold, and the whole thing would be so boring, just watching Jackson beat everyone- again. Lydia wanted to go home and curl up with a hot chocolate and her non-existent homework to take her mind off things.

But she had to play the supportive girlfriend, and so she sat herself on the freezing bleachers, wrapped up in her new black coat, with a hat resting on her red curls, while Allison sat next to her, looking effortlessly good in a scarf and her green, chic jacket.

Jackson emerged from the locker rooms with all the other players, laughing loudly at something she doubted was any kind of funny. Stiles Stilinski was the last to emerge, stumbling over his feet as he tried to fix his helmet on his head.

"Hey, I heard about that guy - Stiles, right?" Allison said, eyebrows furrowed. Lydia could only guess where she was headed, but she nodded anyway. "Apparently his friend was attacked in the woods last night."

"Scott McCall?" Lydia feigned disinterest. "Yeah, some animal. They think it had something to do with the dead body they found. You chose a wonderful time to move here."

Allison gave a small laugh at the joke, but looked slightly upset, which was strange, considering she'd never even met Scott. After about ten minutes of bad playing by everyone other than Jackson, Lydia feigned a headache. After Allison had mentioned it, all she could think about was Scott, lying on the hospital bed, looking so hurt, and she just really wanted to leave.

"Tell Jackson I had to go okay? I'm just not feeling great," she told Allison, already feeling bad at laving the new girl behind, all to herself. "I can take you home if you want?"

Allison considered it, then nodded. "Please. My dad's not coming for me until practice finishes."

After dropping Allison off, Lydia made her way home. When she found herself at a crossroads, she didn't turn down the road that went to her house. Instead, she forged forwards, and found herself in the hospital car park without even realising it. Steeling herself, Lydia threw off her hat and tossed it onto the passenger seat, took a deep breath and then went inside.

"How is he?" she asked Melissa once she saw her, walking down the hall in a different pair of scrubs, but with the same tired smile on her face.

"He's recovering nicely," Melissa said, seemingly happy at the concern Lydia was showing. "He's awake, if you want to go and talk to him?"

That was the last thing Lydia wanted to do; she didn't want to be reminded of what a complete failure she was at helping other people. But Melissa was pretty insistent, so Lydia ended up in a room, alone with Scott McCall, who was giving her a tight smile.

"It's okay," Melissa said, pushing her inside. "He won't bite."

Lydia stepped into the room as Melissa closed the door behind them. She walked slowly over to the bed, where he was sat up. He looked a lot better than before; all the colour had returned to his face and he didn't actually seem to be physically hurt in any way.

"Are you ok?" she asked, hesitant. Then she shook her head. "Stupid question. I know you're not. How... how are you holding up?"

Scott shrugged. "I'm fine," he said honestly. "Not a scratch on me."

Lydia frowned. "But... I saw it. I saw all the blood and there was definitely a mark down your side."

Scott looked confused. "I woke up with no bruises or cuts. Lydia, you must just have been in serious shock."

Lydia seriously doubted it; the blood had been everywhere, and couldn't just have appeared out of thin air. She knew what she saw, and what she had seen had not been very pleasant. But it had definitely been there. Melissa took that moment to come back inside, announcing that Scott had another visitor. Lydia said goodbye to Scott, looked once more at his flawless face, and then headed outside.

"Mrs McCall-"

"Melissa."

"Melissa," Lydia repeated, glancing around to make sure no one was listening in. "Is it... did you...?" She breathed in to calm herself down. "When I was in the woods, I saw a lot of blood. And Scott definitely had more than a few wounds. But now he says that he's completely fine. I know that's impossible. What happened?"

Melissa sighed. "We're honestly not sure. The hospital's labeling it as a miracle. He had deep bite marks across his chest, but by this afternoon, they were all gone. It's insane."

Lydia tried not to focus on the impossible, instead she tried to compartmentalise everything in her head. "So... bite marks. Did they say what animal?"

Melissa looked to make sure no one was listening. "I really shouldn't be telling you this, and you'll probably think I'm making it up. But, the bite marks match the animal hairs found on the dead body."

"What animal was it?" Lydia asked, almost too frightened to want to know the answer.

"A wolf."


	3. It's My Party and I'll Sigh if I Want To

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott's back in school, Lydia forgets about her own party, and Derek Hale is the biggest stalker in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does anyone know what to do if someone's taken your work and posted it somewhere else? One of my fanfictions, Flash and Scream, has been reposted on Wattpad as 'Scream' without my permission, and I'm desperate to know what I need to do to get it off them

It took Lydia until Thursday to realise that the party Jackson had taken upon himself to invite Allison to was her party. Meaning, she was in charge and had to get things ready.

"How could I forget?" she yelled out to herself as the realisation dawned, Thursday morning when she woke up. Luckily, no one was in the house to make her feel so insane. "Idiot!"

She got ready extra-early so she could get out and buy everything she needed. It was a good job she had been so prepared pre-accident, because she had already gotten Jackson to be in charge of the DJ and drinks. Which meant it was just up to her to decorate - and find a dress.

Lydia approached Allison during lunch break, to see if she wanted to go dress shopping with her. She only got as far as "Would you-" before she noticed someone stood across the hall.

It was Scott McCall, looking as fresh-faced and fine as though he had just come back off holiday, not from the hospital. He was talking with an animated grin to a small group of students. Clearly, being sliced by a wolf merited popularity.

"Is that Scott?" Allison guessed, following her line of sight. "The one you told me about yesterday?"

Scott looked up, unexpectedly, as though he had heard them, even though that would have been impossible. He smiled at Lydia, and then looked back to his fans so he could continue his story. But Lydia continued to stare at him, searching resolutely for any sign of incident.

"Did you two... know each other?" Allison asked warily, noting Lydia's attention was elsewhere.

Lydia snapped out of it and returned her natural grin to her face. "No. That's not important. What is important is that we have an hour of lunch break, and I still need to buy myself an outfit for tonight. You're coming, right?"

"Only because you're forcing me to."

Lydia grinned wider, and led the way to her car, hoping that a little retail therapy would help her forget about everything that was happening. She filled her hour with giggles and credit cards, buying anything she saw that would make her feel better. Allison went along with it, and they chatted about anything to do with boys and being a teenager. It was a nice distraction, but everything came crashing back down when Lydia caught the eye of a stranger across the mall.

They were just emerging from a sushi bar, arms loaded with purchases as they made their way back to the car. Lydia happened to glance over by a fountain in the middle of the mall, and noticed a guy standing by it, staring directly at her. He had a look of absolute unhappiness marring his otherwise-handsome face, and the black leather jacket just served to make him look even more like some kind of cliched Gothic hero. Lydia looked away and turned her attention back to Allison, who was musing about some guy or other in their class.

The party was, of course, a success. Not than anyone would have noticed if it wasn't; everyone was so involved in themselves that they probably wouldn't have realised if they were stood in the old, burnt Hale house at the edge of town.

Lydia had just managed to escape Jackson, who was already buzzed, when she noticed Scott, standing alone by the pool, and staring out towards one of the fire pits outside. It took Lydia a moment to realise that the person looming ominously behind it was, in fact, the same man from the mall.

"You know him?" Lydia asked Scott, without really thinking about who she was talking to.

"Not personally. That's Derek Hale," Scott explained. "You remember? From the Hale fire?"

Lydia remembered; it had been about six years ago, but she still remembered how horrified everyone had been by it. All she could recollect of the night was a plume of smoke rising above the trees, but all the people old enough to remember never let anyone forget. The Hales had been a large part of society in Beacon Hills, and so for almost all of them to be killed off in one night, in one big fire, had been a massive shock.

"He was at the mall today," Lydia said quietly, even though she suspected he could hear them anyway. "When Allison and I went."

"I went to the woods today, with Stiles, to see if I could find my inhaler," Scott admitted, and before Lydia could berate him for being so stupid, he talked over her, "I know, it was dangerous. But do you have any idea how expensive inhalers are? Anyway, Derek was there too. The Preserve is private property."

"Owned by the Hales," Lydia finished. "This house - my house - is right on the edge of his land."

Scott looked mildly interested. "So... did you invite him?"

Lydia shook her head. "I have no idea what he's doing here," she said honestly.

"Hey, Lydia, Jackson's looking for you." Allison appeared at her shoulder, smiling her usual, small smile and looking shyly over towards Scott.

Lydia noticed immediately and refrained from rolling her eyes. "Well, he can keep looking, I'm kind of avoiding him. Scott, this is my friend Allison. She's new here."

Lydia tried to block out the awkward flirting and glanced back over to Derek - but he was nowhere to be found. Swallowing heavily, and wishing that by some amazing miracle the night would finish sooner than it should, Lydia looked around for some kind of escape. Her eyes landed back on Scott, and she noticed the beads of sweat dripping down his forehead. His eyes were unfocused, and his hands were clutched in tight fists. He looked ill.

"Scott, you okay?" Lydia asked, worry creeping into her voice.

Allison frowned. "Yeah, Scott, no offence but you look awful."

Scott didn't speak, just shook his head. Derek Hale appeared very suddenly out of nowhere and grabbed Scott by the arm. Lydia started forwards, as though to stop him, even though she knew she would be no use against him. Derek flashed them both a winning smile that, in different circumstances, would have made Lydia swoon. But something about Derek Hale put her totally on edge.

"I'm Scott's friend," Derek lied smoothly. "I'll take him home." He nodded at them and started to drag Scott away. "Ladies."

Lydia panicked - Scott had just confessed that he didn't know Derek personally. So either Derek was some sort of long-lost family relative, or a kidnapper.

"Stop!" she shouted suddenly, alarming both Derek and Allison. But she knew someone had to stick up for Scott, because he certainly couldn't himself. His face was pale, his eyes screwed up in pain and he kept clutching his head as though he was in intense pain. "He needs medical attention. I have painkillers in my kitchen.

Derek glared at her. "No, thanks. Scott's coming home with me. He needs me."

Lydia didn't know what was going on, but she didn't want to ruin her own party by making a fuss. There was only one option left: charm. "I'm sorry," she sighed suddenly, fixing an apologetic smile on her face. "I just... I don't want him to get hurt. How did you say you knew him again?"

Derek sniffed, eyes narrowed at her. "We're old friends. Like brothers."

Lydia opened her mouth to protest again, but Allison was giving her weird looks, and she decided that Derek couldn't be all bad and let him go. "Fine. Just... make sure he's okay."

Derek eyed her strangely once again, and then swiftly left.

"So... I thought you didn't really know Scott?" Allison asked. Lydia ignored her and decided to distract them both so her guilt and worry didn't overpower her.

"Oh, look!" she yelled probably too loudly. "There's Greta. I haven't introduced you yet, have I? Let me tell you, last year she had the _worst_ hair."


	4. Close Encounters of the Gruff Kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia plans to ruin date night and Derek Hale might be part of some kind of animal protection agency.

Scott returned, all well and good, to school on Monday, so Lydia assumed that maybe Derek Hale wasn’t a raving murderer, as she had originally thought.

Over the next few days, Allison’s fascination with Scott increased, while Lydia’s patience for the both of them diminished considerably.

Allison, alone, was so innocent and nice that it was only just bearable. Scott was possibly even nicer, and more innocent. So, together, they were almost entirely unmanageable. Allison talked about him all the time; how brave he was to have survived a wolf attack, how nice his hair was, and how wonderful his personality was. Lydia, because of the annoyance they caused her, attempted to keep them far away from each other as often as possible. But, it was like some otherworldly force wanted them to be together, and no matter how hard she tried, they always found time to awkwardly flirt with each other.

It didn’t help that Scott had suddenly gotten really good at lacrosse, a game he had previously, to put it lightly, sucked at. His new-found athleticism, and heroism from surviving a wolf that couldn’t even have possibly been there, made him all the more irresistible to Allison. Lydia could see it was annoying Stiles as much as it was her; he constantly had to drag Scott away from Allison, and gagged loudly whenever she joined them for lunch.

The final straw, for Lydia at least, was when Allison brought Scott over to their lunch table; the popular table. Jackson raised a perfect eyebrow at them as they practically fell into their seats, and looked personally affronted. Stiles came along, but only begrudgingly, and he mostly stared at Lydia with a kind of desperate infatuation. Lydia hadn’t wanted Scott to die that night in the woods, but that didn’t mean she liked him, or his weirdo friend. And she had a reputation to uphold; no way could she let them just sit at her table.

Unfortunately, Allison seemed to have anticipated this reaction, and so she immediately started up a conversation, so that Lydia couldn’t get a word in. But Lydia Martin refused to be ignored.

“I’m not bothered what we do,” Scott was saying with a shrug. “We could go bowling?”

Lydia saw her chance and butted in with a large grin. “Sounds perfect! Make it a double date? Great! Jackson, don’t you think it will be fun?”

None of the other three people involved looked like they would have used the word ‘fun’ to describe it. Scott and Allison looked too shocked to speak, while Jackson looked physically pained by the suggestion.

“Do you know what else sounds fun? Stabbing myself in the face with this fork.” Jackson brandished his plastic fork for effect.

Lydia ignored him and turned back to the other two. “Great!” she exclaimed. “Allison, honey, you can come back to mine after so we can get ready together.”

Lydia got to her feet, proud of herself for being able to successfully ruin date night, and left quickly before anyone could protest.

 

 

* * *

 

By the time school let out, Allison seemed to have lost all negative feelings towards the double date, and chattered about how excited she was for the entirety of the car drive. When they arrived on Lydia’s street, however, she shut up suddenly and whipped her head around to stare of out of the rear window.

“What?” Lydia asked, fear creeping into her voice. “What did you see?”

Allison shook her head and faced forwards again, a pathetic attempt at a consoling smile on her face. “Nothing. I just thought I saw… you remember the guy from the mall? The one who took Scott home the other night?”

Lydia swallowed hard. “Derek Hale? He lives around here – or, he used to. How was Scott, by the way? What happened?”

Allison distracted herself with thoughts of Scott, and Lydia pretended to listen, despite already knowing – she had ‘accidentally’ happened to bump into Melissa the morning after the party, and had asked then. He had got home very late, in the early hours of the morning, which left a large gap, since he had only left Lydia’s party at about half past ten. But he had been perfectly fine, so Lydia had relaxed a little, but Derek Hale still put her on edge.

Lydia tried to forget her anxieties and pushed herself into preparing for the night ahead. She compared outfits with Allison, and they talked about their boyfriends. Well, Allison talked mostly – she was obsessed with Scott.

The doorbell rang, halting their conversation rather abruptly. Lydia froze and was automatically on edge. Allison noticed and frowned.

“I thought your mom wasn’t coming home for ages?”

“Not until tomorrow,” Lydia confirmed slowly, her eyes wide. Then she shook her head to calm Allison down. “It’ll be one of her wine buddies or something.”

She left Allison upstairs and approached the door slowly, attempting to stand on her tiptoes to catch a glimpse of the visitor. She cursed her mom’s stained glass window atop the door that warped the dark shadow of the person outside. She couldn’t get a good glimpse of who it was.

Taking a deep breath to steel herself, Lydia opened the door quickly, like ripping a band aid off. It was Derek Hale.

“What did you do to Scott?” she asked rather suddenly, without really thinking.

Derek blinked, then rolled his eyes. “Nothing. He’s fine.”

“He didn’t _look_ fine,” Lydia snapped, keeping her voice down so as to not alert Allison. “Did you drug him or something?”

“What do you care?” Derek asked, and Lydia stopped, because why _did_ she care?

“Anyway,” Derek continued. “That’s not why I’m here. I came to ask you a question.”

Lydia raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Did you get bitten, too?”

Lydia snorted. It was such a strange question, and totally out of the blue, that it made the freaky situation particularly hilarious. “What? When?”

Derek looked even more incensed by her amusement, his eyebrows drawing closer in frustration. “When Scott got bitten. In the woods. With the wolf.”

Lydia felt her heart jump into her throat and her hand clutched the door frame tighter. “How did you know I was there?” As far as she knew, only the sheriff’s department (and Melissa) knew she had been there.

Derek shrugged. “Not important. What _is_ important is knowing if you got bitten by that wolf or not.”

“Are you from some sort of animal rescue service?” Lydia asked, eyes narrowed.

“Just answer the question,” Derek said through gritted teeth, nostrils flared in annoyance.

“ _No_ , okay?” Lydia snapped. “It just went after Scott, and it practically ripped him apart, but now he’s miraculously fine. It totally ignored me. Can you leave me alone now?”

Derek blinked at her brashness, but Lydia had had enough so she stepped back and slammed the door in his face. Allison came running down the stairs seconds later, alarm written all over her face.

“Who was it?” she asked, standing on tiptoe to try and see out of the window above the door. But Lydia knew the porch was empty; she had heard him leave as soon as the door was shut.

She pasted a fake smile on her face. “No one. Just one of my mom’s friends. He wouldn’t leave so I forced him to. Did you find something to wear?”

 

* * *

 

 

Lydia regretted boycotting the date as soon as she stepped into the bowling alley. She enjoyed bowling, and she enjoyed (less so) spending time with Jackson, but both together, and with the world’s most sickening couple to deal with on the side, the whole experience was just trying and exhausting.

As she always did, Lydia pretended to suck for Jackson’s benefit, because he looked like he’d swallowed something sour, and it was all her fault. But then his sulky attitude, and Allison’s assurances of “You’re not that bad!” got on her nerves so much that she eventually tossed the bowling ball at the pins with practiced precision and knocked every single one over.

Then she tossed her hair back and stalked off to buy herself a drink.

Scott joined her rather tentatively a few minutes later, looking a little scared of her. ( _Good_ , she thought.)

“I never thanked you,” he said quietly after he ordered his own drink.

“For introducing you to Allison?” Lydia shrugged. “It was nothing, really.”

Scott looked a little taken aback. “Oh. I, er… I wasn’t talking about that, but I suppose I should thank you for that, too. I was kind of talking about… well, you know.”

Lydia sighed, and gratefully took her drink from the man at the till. “No, Scott, I _don’t_ know.”

He looked around desperately for an escape, but he saw none, so he blurted it out rather suddenly. “For the night in the woods. For looking after me.”

Lydia nearly choked on her drink. She didn’t really like thinking about it. “It’s fine, Scott. I didn’t do anything.”

“You ran with me,” Scott pointed out, looking a little annoyed at her dismissive attitude. “You didn’t leave me when I told you to. You tried to get the wolf away from me. And then you stayed in the hospital practically all night until you knew I was okay. Lydia, you didn’t do nothing.”

Lydia eyed him for a moment and then asked the question she had been pondering for a while, suddenly serious. “What happened?” she practically demanded. “Scott, I saw that wolf shred you, and suddenly you’re fine. You’re miraculously friends with Derek Hale, and you’re really good at lacrosse. What is _happening_?”

Scott didn’t say anything; he accepted his drink and fiddled with the straw. “You wouldn’t believe me,” he said finally, taking a long sip to avoid any more questions.

Lydia opened her mouth to tell him to stop making excuses, but Jackson interrupted them, a long-suffering look on his face.

“We still have three games,” he said. “Can we get this over with, please?”


	5. Stiles' Jeep is a Piece of Crap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Notebook causes several tragedies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like i'm using too many line breaks

Lydia walked out of school the next day to the honking of many horns. There was a long line of cars jamming the exit of the school parking lot. And at the front, blocking everyone, was Stiles Stilinski’s Jeep.

“Typical,” Lydia sighed.

“What?” Allison, who had been absorbed with whatever was on her phone screen, asked, her head shooting up. “What is it?”

“Stilinski’s Jeep is a piece of crap, that’s what,” Jackson said, coming to stand by them. His Porsche was stuck, three cars behind Stiles. “Its engine is practically made of duct tape. This is the fifth time this year it’s held us all up.”

“It’s not the engine,” Lydia said offhandedly.

Jackson raised his eyebrow at her. “Go on, then, what is it?”

Lydia realised her mistake (contradicting Jackson was never wise; he thought he was always right) but she forged ahead regardless. “The engine’s running,” she shrugged. “I can hear it from here. Stiles isn’t even in his car.”

Sure enough, Stiles was crouched over something that was led in front of his car, desperately looking for something to help him.

“Is that a _person_?” Allison exclaimed, moving forwards to get a better look.

Seconds later, Stiles was on his feet, attempting to heft a much larger person up off the ground. Allison stopped in her tracks and stared.

“It’s Derek Hale again!” she announced.

Lydia immediately stopped feigning disinterest and joined Allison, standing on tiptoe to better observe the situation. Stiles was practically dragging Derek by his leather jacket, stumbling in an attempt to heave him into the passenger seat. Lydia almost wanted to go and help, but she had a reputation to protect, and she didn’t want to get involved in whatever was going on with Stiles, Scott and Derek. It seemed much too weird for her liking; Derek was a grown man after all.

Finally, Derek and Stiles were in the Jeep and everyone stopped honking their horns. Before he ran back to his own car, Jackson asked, “What the hell is going on with those freaks?”

Lydia was left stood with Allison, feeling more lost and confused than usual. Once the traffic was flowing again, Allison finally turned to Lydia and said, “I have to go. My aunt’s over. You should come and meet her sometime!”

Lydia couldn’t think of anything she would like to do less (other than another double date) but agreed anyway, before moving off to clamber into her own car. On her way home, Lydia tried some serious brainstorming. Why the hell was Derek Hale suddenly so interested in Scott McCall? Was it the wolf attack? The wolf attack that no one would explain to her, which gave her another question: why was there a wolf in Beacon Hills? They usually traveled in packs, so why was it alone? And why had it attacked Scott, seemingly on purpose, practically overlooking her?

And, the question that had been bugging her ever since that night in the woods: where the hell was Prada?

* * *

 

Lydia met Kate Argent the next day, after school. She seemed nice enough, and Allison wouldn’t stop gushing about how great she was. But there was just something off about her – maybe it was the constant, fake smile or the slightly aggressive way she had about doing everything, but Lydia didn’t really like her.

She texted Jackson the rather awkward meeting to tell him that they were going on a date, whether he liked it or not, and then she made a quick exit to go and pick him up. He wasn’t happy.

“I am not watching _The Notebook_ again,” he insisted as he climbed into the car, after she told him they were going to rent a movie.

Lydia didn’t particularly want to watch it, either. Nicholas Spark’s books did nothing for Lydia, personally, and neither did the films. But it was a good film to pretend to get lost in, and she knew Jackson secretly enjoyed it.

He reluctantly went inside the quiet store, and Lydia sat waiting, nervously tapping her steering wheel. Recently, the dark made her agitated and slightly scared. She kept her eyes on Jackson as he made his way through the shop, calling out for someone to assist him. He moved out her sight and she took a deep breath in a pathetic attempt to calm herself.

Then the lights in the store flickered. Lydia swore and moved forward in her seat in an attempt to see something, but it was like staring into nothing; there was nothing visible to see. Her heart pounding, Lydia considered going out to help Jackson.

 _It’s just a power failure,_ she told herself. _There’s nothing wrong. You’re just being paranoid._

But minutes passed, and there was still no sign of Jackson. Lydia’s belt was unbuckled and her hand was on the door handle when she heard it. A low growling noise, coming from the shop.

A loud crash sounded. Lydia screamed. Something large came tumbling out; something large, and distinctly wolf-shaped.

Lydia could see it, as she fumbled for her phone and attempted to dial 911 with shaking fingers. She could see it, out of the corner of her eye, still and waiting. For what, she didn’t want to know. All she knew was that Jackson was probably hurt, and she could be next. She locked the car, pressed the call button and waited.

Her eyes wandered and landed on the wolf. Its red eyes were looking straight at her. It didn’t look like a usual wolf; its body was too long, and its colouring was all wrong. But she couldn’t see properly in the dark, so she assumed that was the only problem. Faintly, Lydia heard the woman on the phone ask for her emergency, but she couldn’t find her voice.

“There’s been an attack at the rental store,” she managed to croak out eventually, still keeping eye contact with the wolf. “Some kind of animal attack.”

The woman kept asking her questions, sounding progressively more and more worried, but Lydia wasn’t listening. She stared at the red eyes, and tried to make out the rest of the wolf, but when she blinked it was gone.

* * *

 

The ambulance arrived first. One of the paramedics knocked on her window, startling her.

“My boyfriend’s in there,” Lydia squeaked out, pointing to the broken window of the store. “The lights went out; I didn’t see what happened.”

A couple of them went inside cautiously while another helped Lydia out of the car and took her to the ambulance to see if she had any trauma. Lydia couldn’t sit still; she might not have been Jackson’s biggest fan, but she didn’t want him to get mauled by a wolf, either. A wolf that had glowing red eyes and didn’t really look like a wolf; a wolf that she still wasn’t convinced was real.

Her heart skipped a beat when the paramedics returned to the ambulance, dragging a very angry Jackson behind them.

“My legs were _trapped_ under those shelves,” he was saying, rather emphatically as usual, and as though he was the biggest victim in the world. “If my legs aren’t damaged, then my emotional state definitely is. I’d like to sue the store.”

Lydia regretted ever feeling sorry for him, but she still held his hand and rubbed it quietly while he continued to rant.

“The store owner is dead, I’m afraid,” one of the paramedics said, and sure enough, a stretcher covered in a white cloth was being rolled into the still-dark store. “So I don’t think suing him would do you any good.”

Death wasn’t something that Jackson Whittemore would stop for, unfortunately, and so he continued to list off everything that he thought was probably affected (Lydia thought that the worst affected was probably his dignity).

The Sheriff arrived soon afterwards, and Lydia stepped out of the way so that the body could be put into the back of the ambulance. She averted her eyes skyward when it was rolled past because dead bodies were not something she wanted to see this young, and as she did she noticed someone on the roof. Two someones, really.

Derek Hale and Scott McCall.


	6. After-School Fight Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> School sucks worse than usual, especially at night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like i'm also using really dramatic one-sentence paragraphs... if it's too much, ask me to tone it down. i'm getting a little annoyed at myself tbh

Lydia decided to take the next day off school for emotional trauma. It wasn’t as if her grades would suffer, and hopefully the time off would give her chance to think. Something weird – something _big_ – was going on in Beacon Hills, and she had a horrible feeling like a lot of people were keeping large secrets.

After complaining to her mother about her emotional health, it didn’t take much for Lydia to be left alone in her house, and she took a major advantage of it. She wore only her pajamas (one of her dad’s old shirts and a pair of shorts) and placed her hair in a messy bun. Then she arranged everything she knew, which wasn’t an awful lot, on her bed and looked at it all. She felt like she should have one of those boards, like she knew Stiles enjoyed to use, where she could pin everything and then make her connections that way. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a board, or much information, so she was left with her bed and printed out newspaper articles.

Everything seemed to have started with Scott being attacked, so Lydia used that as a starting point. From there, she tried to work through all the recent events in Beacon Hills until she came up with something. The only thing that linked them were animal attacks, mostly all assumed to be mountain lions. And yet, some of the marks were most definitely from a wolf.

At about noon, Lydia’s doorbell rang. She froze in her movements (halfway through eating a large tub of ice cream) and panicked for a moment. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and very little clothing, so any unexpected visitors were going to get an eyeful. It was probably Stilinski, she reasoned, in which case she could just ignore him until he went away.

When Lydia opened the door however, it most definitely was not Stiles. It was Derek Hale. Lydia wanted to make a comment about how he had some weird fetish with her house, but then she noticed the thing in his arms and immediately forgot all her negative feelings towards him.

“Prada!” she exclaimed loudly, snatching her dog and cradling him close. He seemed perfectly unharmed, which she was extremely thankful for. She held him for a moment and then let him run off into the kitchen. Then she turned back to Derek with an almost-smile. “Thanks.”

He shrugged and seemed completely unfased by her praise. “Whatever. I need to ask you a question.”

Lydia sighed. “Not again. What is it this time?”

His usual annoyed look crossed his face (she was pleased to note that it was, more often than not, always on around her). “What did you see last night?”

There he went again, with the invasive questions. “None of your business. Why do you need to know this kind of thing? You’re clearly not looking out for my welfare, so it’s going to have to be the wolf’s.”

“So you saw a wolf?” Derek guessed.

Annoyed, Lydia tried to slam the door in his face, but he managed to force it open again with one single hand, while she was pushing with all her might. Eventually, she gave up. “Maybe. I don’t know. I saw a thing, and it had red eyes. It looked like a wolf, I suppose.”

Derek narrowed his eyes. “You don’t sound sure.”

“Because wolves don’t have red eyes,” Lydia said as though it was obvious, then caught herself. “I think, anyway.”

Derek looked really unsure. “I suppose you didn’t get a good look at it, did you?”

Lydia shrugged and said, offhandedly, “Actually, we kind of had a staring match when it came flying through the window. I just remember it had very red eyes, and it didn’t look much like a wolf. But I suppose, if that’s what they’re all saying…”

“What did it look like?” Derek interrupted. “To you?”

Lydia hesitated, then realised suddenly who she was talking to. “Nothing, okay? It looked like a weird mutant wolf with red eyes and a large body. That was it.” She was about to slam the door again, when a question popped into her mind and she blurted it out. “How come you and Scott are so close all of a sudden?”

Derek sighed for so long that Lydia half expected him to pass out. “It’s really none of your business.”

Frustration built up so suddenly (she just wanted to know what the hell was going on) that Lydia almost punched him. But, she got the feeling that it wouldn’t affect him much. Instead, she gripped the doorframe and bit out, “Well, leave him alone. He doesn’t need you influencing him. He’s a nice guy. You are clearly not.”

Then, with her best fake smile, Lydia slammed the door and moved back inside.

* * *

 

The days passed, and Lydia still didn’t get any answers. She felt like her life was slowly falling apart around her; Jackson was getting more and more distant, and closer and closer to Allison; Allison herself was more consumed with her family and Scott, and it was with a pitying sigh that Lydia realised she didn’t have much more to her life than those two people.

At least nothing bad had happened for a time. No mysterious animal attacks or weird, unexplained disappearances. Beacon Hills seemed to be in a period of quiet time.

And then, one night, Lydia got a text.

_Meet me at the school. URGENT – Scott._

Ten minutes later (after Lydia ignored it for as long as she could) Allison rang to say she had got the exact same text, after Scott had stood her up for their date. Jackson, once he somehow got wind of the situation, insisted on taking them both there. The whole drive, he flirted outright with Allison, who flirted right back, and Lydia tried desperately not to care.

As soon as they pulled up at the school, Lydia got out of the car and observed the dark building, with only one visible door open.

“They usually shut the doors at night,” she found herself saying.

“Well, I’m going in,” Allison said determinedly.

“That’s a stupid idea,” Lydia said briskly.

They both glared at her, but she just raised an eyebrow.

“What?” she asked. “This whole thing is weird. Did Scott even text you using his actual number?”

Allison reluctantly shook her head.

“Exactly,” Lydia said triumphantly. “It’s night, at school, and Stiles’ Jeep over there is a bigger piece of crap than usual. This is clearly some sort of set up, and the stupidest thing for us to do right now would be to walk in there. We should call the Sheriff."

That didn’t shut Allison up for long. “Well, if this is a set up, then Scott and Stiles might be in trouble. Right? So I’m going to go in there and help them. The Sheriff will take too long; they could already be hurt.”

She set off confidently, clutching a mini flashlight in her hand. Lydia gaped after her.

“Did you just hear anything that I said?”

Unfortunately, Jackson had his determined face on, and he forged after Allison, leaving Lydia with no choice but to follow; she didn’t want to be left outside alone.

* * *

 

The school corridors were silent and dark. There had always been something eerie about seeing it in the dark; a place that was usually so full of life suddenly depleted to nothing was kind of sad and a little bit freaky. Something was off. Something in the air, that reminded Lydia of the night in the woods. It was an air of anticipation, like something bad was going to happen sometime soon. It freaked her out, so she stuck closer to Jackson, even though she had a feeling he’d be pretty useless in a life-threatening situation.

They searched the entire first floor together, with no sign of Scott or Stiles. As they reached the swimming pool, Allison’s phone went off.

“A text from my mom,” she said apologetically.

But then it started ringing, making them all jump. “It’s Stiles,” Allison said, surprised, and then quickly answered the phone. “Where’s Scott?” she demanded. “No, I don’t… yeah, I’m on the first floor… lobby? We’ll be there in a minute.”

She hung up and faced them. “Something’s definitely wrong. We need to meet them in the lobby and then we can get the hell out of here.”

When they reached the lobby, Scott and Stiles appeared relatively okay; they looked a little ragged and tired, but otherwise fine. Upon seeing the others, Scott surged forwards.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, mainly directing his question at Allison.

She brandished her phone. “Did you send this text?”

Scott looked a little taken aback. “No. That’s not my number.”

“Look, let’s just get out of here,” Jackson sighed loudly. “Can we leave?”

“All the exits are barred,” Scott said. “We already tried; there’s no way out.”

“We came in through the back door,” Lydia offered. “That was open.”

Scott ran a hand over his face.

“What?” Jackson demanded.

Stiles took over. “It, er… we barricaded that one shut. With pliers.”

“So, you’re saying…” Allison trailed off.

“Someone wanted us all in here,” Scott finished, looking up with a grim face. “Whoever it is wanted Allison in here.”

“And Lydia,” Allison added, pointing to Lydia, who looked away from them all.

Scott and Stiles turned to her. “What?”

“Lydia got the text, too,” Allison said. Lydia reluctantly fished out her phone and showed them. Scott and Stiles exchanged worried glances.

“Who is it, Scott? Who’s here?” Allison whispered, her voice high and scared. “What’s happening?”

Scott was saved from answering when the ceiling suddenly caved in. Lydia screamed and bolted, everyone else quickly following suit. No one looked behind, they just ran. Lydia stumbled for a moment and attempted to reach for Jackson, but he was hurrying Allison along, his girlfriend completely forgotten. Risking a glance behind, Lydia’s worst fears were confirmed.

It was the wolf.

Lydia poured on speed, and they all collapsed into a science room. Scott and Stiles barricaded the door swiftly (clearly, they’d had practice) and they all tried to catch their breath.

“What’s happening, Scott?” Allison demanded, tears in her eyes. She was verging on hysterics, her hands shaking uncontrollably. “Who was it out there?”

Scott looked lost for words, and Lydia didn’t blame him; Allison was being a little invasive to someone who was clearly too overwhelmed to think straight.

“I… I don’t know,” Scott said lamely, bending across a lab table and trying to think.

Allison wasn’t taking that as an answer, apparently, because she continued to pry. “Who is it, Scott? What’s happening?”

“Someone killed the janitor,” Stiles finally spoke up for his friend. “And now they’re trying to kill us too.”

“Who?” Allison seemed angry now, which Lydia thought was totally unfair, considering Scott had done well to get this far without emotionally breaking down, after discovering a dead janitor and being locked in a school with a murderer.

So Lydia covered for him, which was a stupid idea in hindsight. “Cut him a little slack, Allison,” she snapped. “He just saw the janitor brutally murdered and all you want to do is quiz him? You’re acting like this is his fault. Give him a little time.”

That didn’t sit well with Jackson. “Why are you so defensive of him?” he asked angrily. “Is this because of that night in the woods?”

Lydia blinked and felt her chest tighten. “What?”

Jackson rolled his eyes. “Did you think I really wouldn’t find out? I know you were in the woods with McCall that night he was attacked.”

Lydia felt her heart stop. Scott hung his head in shame. Allison’s eyes widened and she looked between the three of them in what looked like betrayal.

“What? Why didn’t any of you tell me?”

“Because it’s not important,” Lydia said through gritted teeth. She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation, right now, with a killer wolf on the loose. “There’s something trying to _kill_ us, and we’re talking about something that doesn’t even matter.”

Scott nodded and gestured to a door by the chalkboard. “That goes onto the roof. From there we can go down the fire escape and run to Jackson’s car. Stiles’ Jeep is bust. We need to get out of here as fast as we can. Good?”

“Not good,” Stiles said, pointing to the doorknob, which clearly needed a key.

Scott tried it, but it was locked firmly shut. A look crossed his face that told them he had come up with a stupid idea. “The janitor. The key will be on his body. I’ll go and get it.”

“No!” Allison, Stiles and Lydia chorused.

Scott looked a little shocked about how worried everyone was for him, but he shrugged. “It’s the only plan. It’s either me, or all of us.”

“I say we let McCall go,” Jackson offered.

Lydia clutched her hands tight at his words. “Well, he’s not going alone.”

Scott looked majorly alarmed. “What? You’re not coming!”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Not what I meant.” She gestured to a cabinet full of acids. “In there is all we need to make a Molotov cocktail.” At everyone’s raised eyebrows, she elaborated. “A fire bomb? I read about it somewhere. It’s some kind of weapon. It could work.”

Clearly that was enough for everyone. Jackson drove his elbow through the glass and Lydia set to mixing everything into a beaker. Then she stoppered it and passed it to Scott.

“Be careful,” she warned.

He nodded, turned to them all one last time, and was about to walk out of the door when Allison stopped him.

“You know how you said I have a tell?” she asked. “When I lie. You have one, too, and you have been lying all night.”

Scott looked to Stiles for guidance, and Stiles just shrugged. Allison’s words made Lydia feel uneasy; if Scott had been lying, then that made this incident weird, and that meant it was something else she had to try to compartmentalise. She really didn’t want that; what she wanted was to believe that there was a rogue wolf on the run in Beacon Hills, killing randomly. So, although she had a billion questions (like what were they doing in school this late in the first place?) she kept them to herself.

Scott ducked his head in shame at Allison’s words. “I swear I’ll explain when we get out of here,” he said eventually, then took another step forward.

Allison stopped him again. “Just tell me one thing, and don’t lie this time,” she was getting a little aggressive. “Who’s out there?”

Scott looked to Stiles before blurting out, “Derek Hale.” He looked a little surprised at his own answer, but then he pressed on. “He killed his sister, and then he killed the store manager. Now he’s after us.”

Then he forged past them all and slammed the door behind him.

* * *

 

Lydia was left reeling, barely noticing the fact that Jackson was taking the opportunity to feel Allison up under the pretense of comforting her. Derek Hale. She couldn’t believe it. Yes, he had been a little creepy, and a little weird, but she was almost certain that he wasn’t a murderer. He had said that he was Scott’s friend, and Scott never really seemed to argue with that. She sat on a stool, put her head in her hands, and tried not to think about the implications of the fact that it was a person in the school, and not an animal. If it had been a wolf, then the fire bomb would have worked fine and they would have been able to get out quickly. But because it was a person, complications arose.

And if it was a person, then the wolf still existed, just as a separate problem, and she didn’t know whether she could deal with that.

Lydia looked up back at the chemicals she’d used to create the Molotov cocktail and her heart stopped. “Jackson,” she said slowly. “Did you pass me the sulphuric acid? It wouldn’t work if it was anything else.”

“I passed you what you asked,” Jackson practically growled, not looking up from rubbing his hand up and down Allison’s back as she cried softly. But there was something about his tone that put her off. “What does it matter?”

She got to her feet. “ _Jackson_ ,” she said, this time louder, and he finally looked at her. “ _It matters_ because, if you didn’t, then it wouldn’t work and I would just have passed Scott a bottle of nothing. He’d have to face a murderer with _nothing_ , do you understand that?”

Jackson blinked at her forwardness, then just cocked an eyebrow at her. “What do you care? This is because of that night in the woods again, isn’t it?”

Lydia very nearly smashed the bottle of acid on his face. “Are you joking? Jackson, this is a person’s life, don’t you get that? It wouldn’t have mattered if it was Stiles who walked out that door right now; I would be concerned, because I am a human being who actually has feelings, and doesn’t push a boy out to face his death because you want the excuse to hit on his girlfriend.”

Allison looked a little alarmed, and she inched away from Jackson, shooting him her doe eyes. “You did give her the right acid, didn’t you, Jackson?”

“Yes!” Jackson yelled, looking more annoyed by the second.

There were a lot of things Lydia wanted to say, the most prominent of which was the fact that she wanted to break up with him, but the peal of sirens stopped her before she could. Flashing blue lights filled the classroom and they all breathed a sigh of relief. Within moments, deputies were ushering them out of the classroom, down the corridors and finally into the cool night air.

“Where’s Scott?” Allison was asking, whipping her head around as the Sheriff attempted to usher her away from the scene. “He went after Derek, where is he?”

“Calm down,” the Sheriff said, then pointed towards Stiles’ wrecked Jeep. “He’s over there.”

Sure enough, Scott was stood by the Jeep, looking a little ruffled but otherwise unharmed. And not dead, which Lydia supposed was the most important thing. Allison raced over to him, looking more annoyed than relieved. Lydia tried to feel better – they were all okay, they weren’t in any danger, none of them were hurt - but there was no sign of Derek, which couldn’t bode well.

And that didn’t explain why she had seen a _wolf_ drop from the ceiling.


	7. To Kill a Social Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia does something extremely stupid
> 
> Like, really stupid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so it is nearly the end of season one/part one and are Lydia and Scott proper friends yet like I promise in the summary??????????? no 
> 
> because I am an awful person
> 
> lol
> 
> so anyway if anyone hasn't noticed i'm awful at updating - sorry - but here we are eventually ... the last chapter will be the next one so I suppose the climax might be worth it (probs not) but ok. we're dealing with life one step at a time. and also there is no dydia action really? oh gosh why do I bother really
> 
> I certainly don't know
> 
> part two will hopefully have more action all round (if I ever get around to writing it lol)
> 
> in other news I have 3000 more fanfictions written in procrastinating this one ... so keep an eye out for more teen wolf aus that focus basically on Lydia and no one else because she's my fave and i'm hopeless
> 
> whatever
> 
> enjoy guys, your comments genuinely keep me alive and writing

Lydia didn’t really know what possessed her, but she did it anyway. Maybe it was because Scott approached her first, or because she knew him and Allison had been going through a rough patch, or maybe it was because she was on edge from all the lying and secrets and the recent manhunt for Derek that had come up fruitless, or because Jackson was no longer paying her attention, or because she was trying to regain a little of her old, stupid self – 

Whatever the reason (and, frankly, there were many) Lydia still did it.

She still kissed Scott.

She kissed her best friend’s boyfriend, even though they were on a break at the time. The number one worst thing she could do to ruin her already-tentative friendship with Allison, and she had done it. The worst part was that she didn’t regret it.

To be fair, it was partly (mostly) Scott’s fault. He approached her first, looking at her with a strange sort of confidence and hunger that she hadn’t seen on him before. It had scared her a little, but at the same time had thrilled her. So when he’d asked to talk to her in coach’s very empty office and began some meaningless spiel about Allison, Lydia could only think of one thing she wanted to do. 

In those moments, with Scott kissing her senseless, his arms wrapped tight around her in an embrace she hadn’t felt for months, Lydia had forgotten everything. Had forgotten Allison, and Jackson and the fact that Stiles had a massive crush on her. In those moments, she couldn’t care less about any of those people. The consequences didn’t matter.   
It was over as soon as it began, and they parted ways without saying another word to each other. Still, two days later, Allison found out.

“You kissed Scott,” she said bluntly. They were walking through the woods after school, Allison for some bizarre reason clutching a giant bow, when she sprung the news on her.

Lydia opened her mouth to say something, but her brain failed her. Her so-called genius IQ sputtered out and she was left with nothing. Because she had done the wrong thing, and there was no explanation to make Allison feel better.

She didn’t need to say anything in the end, because Allison’s rage was apparent from the way she started aiming her arrows at the nearest tree. Lydia stood by the side, staring at her (now ruined) heels, and wishing for the ground to swallow her whole. Everything in the past few weeks seemed to be accumulating and she didn’t think she was ready for any of the repercussions, especially Allison’s wrath.

But Allison remained silent and just shot her arrows into the tree, and Lydia found that she would have preferred a solid slap in the face to this.

“Allison,” she finally managed, when her friend was finally packing her things away and the night was gloomily rolling its way into the preserve. “Allison, please talk to me. Hate me if you must, but please just … say something.”

Allison took her time in slinging her bow over her shoulder and then facing Lydia. “I don’t hate you, Lydia. I don’t really get why you did it, and I’m a little mad, but I suppose … I don’t hate you.”

As she started to walk off, Lydia found she couldn’t take it anymore. “Please, Allison, I-“

Allison spun round suddenly. “Seriously. Drop it. Or I will get mad.”

“But I want to make this right,” Lydia pleaded. “Allison, I’m really sorry, I don’t really know what came over me. It was stupid and pathetic and I know whatever I do can’t make up for it. But just … I want to be okay with you again.”

Allison sighed, but her face softened. Then her eyes brightened. “Actually, there is one thing you can do for me…”

\--

That was how Lydia ended up on Stiles Stilinski’s arm for the night of the winter formal. She had to go there in his rusting Jeep and sit through stilted conversation, and watch him fawn over her like some lovesick boy. But, despite all of this (and her mother’s disapproving gaze upon his arrival at their house) Lydia found that she actually enjoyed herself. For the most part, anyway.

Allison and Jackson turned up together, but she couldn’t find any jealousy there, because they were only there as a pair because Scott was banned from the whole night – something about low grades. In turn, that made Lydia feel better, because it meant she didn’t have to face up to the fact that she might have ruined their already-fragile-not-quite-friendship. Plus, Jackson looked miserable, already drunk with dark circles under his eyes, and Lydia managed to ignore the pang of sympathy in order to feel a little pleased that at least his life wasn’t going any better than her own. It was cruel, but as he sneered at her on his way past, she couldn’t feel too bad about it. 

Stiles dragged her onto the dancefloor for a slow song or two, and at one point Scott gatecrashed to score a dance with Allison and (strangely enough) Danny. But, despite the positive feeling that was swallowing them all whole, something was missing.

“Jackson,” Stiles offered, when he noted that she was looking around for something. She hadn’t even realised it herself. “You’re looking for Jackson.”

With a pang of guilt, Lydia realised it was true. The image of the dark under-eyes and his drunken state had made her doubt her hatred for him. It made her remember a more vulnerable time in their relationship, when they used to be more friends, and care about what the other thought and felt. Wordlessly, Lydia patted Stiles’ arm and made her way out of the school, into the cold night air.

That was her first mistake.


End file.
